Food - Drink
Why Adding Salt Is So Important When Cooking Rice
By LAUREN ROTHMAN
If your home-cooked rice has ever turned out undercooked, overcooked, too hard, too mushy, or even scorched, then you know how tricky preparing perfect rice can be. Underseasoned rice is also a common infraction but this pitfall can be solved with either a pinch, dash, or spoonful of salt.
With all the pitfalls that can strike a person just trying to cook a darn good pot of rice, one thing you'll want to be sure to nail is getting the seasoning right. You should think about rice the way you think about pasta, in the sense that adding salt to the cooking water is a non-negotiable if you want the starch to taste anything but bland by the time it's done cooking.
The outlet recommends adding between a ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon for each cup of rice you're preparing. As with every rule, there's an exception: in Asian cultures, including Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, it is not traditional to add salt to rice while it's cooking but when in doubt, we say go ahead and salt that rice cooking water.